


Behind the Lens

by withaflashoflove



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withaflashoflove/pseuds/withaflashoflove
Summary: Popstar meets photographer AU. Oneshot.





	Behind the Lens

**Author's Note:**

> For Ingrid :)

The first time he sees her is through a lens.

He captures her by accident, initially eyeing the crowd of fans encircling her. He doesn’t know who she is, but he assumes she's famous, assumes that’s why there’s a group of people around her, assumes that’s why they’re screaming her name and trying to get close.

And he likes the chaos, his camera always in hand, so he decides to get a snapshot of this moment in time.

When he reflects on the picture, he blinks.

Twice.

Because she can’t be real.

She can’t really be this beautiful in midday, in midweek, on a busy street, during rush hour.

Something has to be fogging his vision, the camera has to be wrong; it’s too high in resolution, it’s the illusion that’s captivating, not her, it can’t be her.

And then he looks up.

And she's smiling at him, ever so softly, so quietly.

He smiles back, the camera in his hand long forgotten.

It’s not very good anyway.

Not when the real life image is so much _more_.

* * *

She reads his name in an article.

Photographer: Barry Allen. Listed right under a photo of her.

The picture is pretty.

There are a lot of colors, the people around her are out of focus, but her profile is in view.

She doesn’t like seeing herself in magazines too much.

But for some reason, this one isn’t too bad. It’s a good candid, he’s got a good eye for it.

She barely remember’s him. He stood a few feet away. The first thing she saw was his camera, but he couldn’t have known she would’ve been there; no one knew she was coming back home a week early, no one knew she was just trying to enjoy a week alone away from the spotlight and fame, lost in the wandering eyes of the city.

But sunglasses and a new haircut weren’t a good enough disguise.

Still. He wasn’t a fan. And she didn’t recognize him. He couldn’t have known her… right?

But he had a pretty smile. That, she was certain about.

* * *

Iris West.

International popstar Iris West.

Her name is Iris West, and clearly he’s been looking under rocks all his life to have missed her. Now that he knows her, he sees her everywhere. On billboards and morning shows, on social media and entertainment features.

She's on Instagram and Twitter. She's not very active on either, which bums him out, because _there goes cyber stalking._ But from what he can see of her, from what she lets him - and her 22 million fans - are small moments of her life, moments that were captured by a camera, moments that he could’ve captured if he’d just been looking for her.

Instead of looking everywhere else.

And _now_ he’s seeing her in the everywhere, and he can’t help but pause the show or read the article or smile when her face pops in front of his.

The absolute worst part about this whole thing -- the whole _falling in love with someone who’s famous who will never know you_ thing -- is that he knows she looks better in person.

* * *

Barry Allen has green eyes on most days. On some days, his eyes are blue. Other days, they’re multicolor.

Most days though.

Most days, they are green.

Which works well with his hazelnut hair and his…

Well. He just looks good. He works well. All of him.

It’s strange, this feeling between them. The chance encounter that happened two months ago, and now here they were again, running into each other for the 3rd time on the street.

Except this time, Iris stopped. And this time, he put his camera down.

And this time...there was no lens for a filter, it was just the two of them, on a crowded street, pretending like the entire world didn’t exist. Or maybe they weren’t pretending, maybe they just couldn’t see beyond themselves, in this moment, in this time.

* * *

At the party, Barry stares on as Iris greets dozens of fans, as she signs more than what he presumes is a 100 autographs.

He stands awkwardly in a corner.

When she invited him to come, it was a flustered, awkward yes, where he was rambling too much and gesturing too much and she was laughing at him (couldn’t be with him, because he _definitely_ wasn’t laughing), and with cheeks blushed and a gaping expression, he managed to somehow be genuine, to make her believe he wanted to go, to make her lean up and kiss him on the cheek, and he really didn’t know how that happened.

But he’s here now.

There’s a lot of people, some of them chanting her name, some of them yelling too loudly, all of them _too_ close to her, and he has to fight the urge not to be overprotective, because he doesn’t know her like that, she isn’t his to protect, not yet at least, if there’s even a yet and...yeah.

His thoughts are getting the best of him, the wishful happiness that she brings him making stars appear in his eyes.

He thinks he’s in love with her.

Knows he shouldn’t be.

She's famous and she travels and he doesn’t compare.

Still, when her eyes meet his eyes, his heart nearly shatters his entire chest just to jump out and reach her.

It has to be love.

* * *

On the rooftop, they sneak away to Iris’s favorite destination in her home city.

She doesn’t take many people up here. In fact, barely anyone knows that before the fame and the lights, she used to be a barista at the local coffeeshop. Jitters has been home ever since then. It’s her getaway, her place away from the world, her place to write and think and reflect and...be.

But Barry’s with her tonight.

He makes her feel...safe.

...and like she can exist just being herself around him.

She's got his jacket on, and she knows it’s a cliche to use the shiver trick, but it worked on him, so thank god for cliches after all.

When she presses a little closer to his side, as they both lean their weight on the parapet, his hand comes to drape around her shoulder. Iris can’t help but be a little impressed, can’t help the sly smile that forms on her face because _he finally made a move._

They stand for a while, in the cold of the night, huddled together watching the moon. Barry asks her about her life, and there’s no rush to their conversation. She tells him about her family, about her love of music and travel, about how powerful she feels with a pen in her hand, the same power that comes with a mic touching the tip of her lips. He listens to her talk the entire time, tells her about his life when she asks, and eventually, when they both get too cold, when the night breeze becomes too strong, he walks her home.

Iris _almost_ invites him in. Especially when his lips touch her lips. Especially when he slides his hands around her waist and brings her close to him, so that no space is separating them, so that she can feel his heartbeat beating on her chest, so that she can taste the honey on his tongue.

She has no justification for watching him leave. Call it cold feet. But when he turns back and smiles at her, his lips red from the cold (and probably from her lipstick), she can’t help the grin that forms on her face as well.

* * *

 It’s custom now.

Whenever Iris travels, Barry goes along with her. And he’s always behind the camera, he’s always the one shooting the million dollar shots.

But she's gotten good at photography as well. It felt right, in the same way that he started singing with her, for her, whenever she had a rehearsal or needed the right melody with her lyrics.

So now she takes pictures of him. Most of them, he doesn’t like. He’s always been camera shy, always been the one to be in the blur, not in focus.

That’s not the point.

The point is, she somehow makes him fall in love with himself. Especially when she's in the picture with him. When it’s just the two of them, when she's kissing his cheek or stroking his face, when he’s kissing her lips or has his hand in her hair.

They hang all around their apartment in Central City. He has copies of them on his phone, and his laptop, and a backup drive, because he can never be too sure, doesn’t want their memories to ever be erased.

And it’s easy to fall in love with her every day, to tell her he loves her every morning, when he wakes her up by humming her name into the air, when he kisses the sleep off her eyes, when he lets her curl into him and convinces him of _5 more minutes_ in bed, between the sheets, because she's Iris.

The world knows her.

And maybe, in a way, she belongs to it.

He doesn’t mind that.

But on their days off, when it’s just the two of them, away from the chaos, away from the crowds, when he watches her make her coffee while singing a tune to her favorite song in one of his old t-shirts, the fabric hanging low on her mid-thigh, her hair curly and resting on the ledge of her shoulders, when he watches as she walks over to him, as she places her coffee mug on the table and rests herself between his legs, drawing the blanket to cover them both as they watch TV, neither really paying attention, too lost in each other's eyes, when it's moments like there, where there is nothing more, nothing less, just rawness and vulnerability, he thinks maybe they belong to each other, maybe he has her heart, in the same way that she has his, and maybe, just  _maybe,_ she'll always stay.

It's okay if he losses the pictures.

As long as he keeps her.


End file.
